Erdogan Set to Seek Final Term as Türkiye's President

ERBIL (Kurdistan24) - A senior advisor to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Thursday, that he expects the country's next presidential election to be held on April 16, 2028, with Erdogan standing as a candidate for the presidency for the final time.

Mehmet Uçum, senior advisor to Erdogan in his capacity as president and as chairman of the Justice and Development Party (AKP), said in a statement that he expects the elections to take place on April 16, 2028 — a date that coincides with the anniversary of the referendum that passed Türkiye's presidential system, giving it symbolic significance. Uçum added that Erdogan will be running for the presidency for the final time.

The prediction comes after a presidential palace advisor proposed, in a speech in late June 2026, that Türkiye's parliament decide between Feb. 9 and Feb. 15, 2028, on renewing and bringing forward the elections. That advisor noted that under the constitution, if parliament votes to renew the elections, Erdogan would meet the legal conditions required to run again. He clarified that such a move would not, politically, be considered an "early election," since it would advance the vote by only three weeks from its normal date of May 7, 2028.

Under Türkiye's current constitution, a president may serve no more than two consecutive terms. Erdogan, re-elected to a second term in the 2023 elections under the presidential system, is now serving what would ordinarily be his second and final term. However, under a constitutional provision, if the Turkish parliament decides — before the term ends — to dissolve itself and bring forward the elections, the sitting president is granted the right to stand for an additional term.

Erdogan, president of Türkiye and leader of the AKP, was born on Feb. 26, 1954, in Istanbul. He began his political career working within Islamist parties before rising to prominence as mayor of Istanbul in 1994, where he achieved notable success in running the city's affairs. He founded the AKP in 2001 and became prime minister of Türkiye in 2003. In 2014, he became the first president elected by direct popular vote, and in the years that followed he oversaw the country's transition from a parliamentary to a presidential system of government.